How to Pause Your Student Loan Payments | Student Loan Forbearance's & Deferment's | Jason Spencer Dallas
According to Jason Spencer Dallas, Students are burdened with student loan debt like never before. Americans owe over $1.4 trillion in student loan debt and the average graduate walks away with $37,172 in debt. Keeping up with your payments can be difficult, especially if you’re facing hardships like unemployment or a medical emergency.
If you’re in a tough spot, you have options you can use so you don’t default on your loans. If you have federal student loans, you can use deferment or forbearance to get through a rough patch. While using either option is not ideal, they can be a tool to help you get back on your feet according to Jason Spencer Dallas.
Student loan deferment
Student loan deferment is a federal repayment option that allows you to pause your student loan payments for up to three years. Depending on the type of loan you have, you may not be responsible for interest charges that accrue on your loan.
Pros
If you defer your student loans, you can stop making payments without entering default or damage your credit. That can free up money in your budget to pay for other demands, such as medical bills or rent. Having that breathing room can allow you to focus on getting your finances back on track.
If you have subsidized student loans, the government will pay interest that accrues while your debt is in deferment.
Cons
If your loans are unsubsidized, the government won’t cover the interest that accrues on your debt. That means your loan balance can grow while you’re in deferment and you can end up paying back thousands more in interest once deferment is over.
How to apply for student loan deferment
To be eligible for student loan deferment, you must meet one of the following criteria:
You are enrolled at least half-time at a qualifying university.
You are unemployed or unable to find a full-time job.
You are experiencing an economic hardship or serving in the Peace Corps.
You are on active duty military service.
Deferments are not automatic. To request a deferment, you must complete an Unemployment Deferment Form, In-School Deferment Form, or Economic Hardship Form. You should send the appropriate form and documentation showing you meet the eligibility requirements to your loan servicer for their review.
If you don’t qualify for student loan deferment for whatever reason, you might still be able to pause monthly payments through student loan forbearance.
Student loan forbearance
Like student loan deferment, you can postpone student loan payments or lower monthly payments via forbearance. If you qualify for forbearance, you can stop making payments for up to 12 months.
There are two types of forbearance: mandatory and discretionary.
With mandatory forbearance, the government requires loan servicers to grant you a forbearance if you meet one of the following criteria:
You are serving in a medical or dental residency program.
The monthly payment on your loans is 20 percent or more of your gross income.
You are a teacher serving in an area that would qualify you for Teacher Loan...

Federal Government Allowing Student Loan Servicers to Herd Millions into Default | Jason Spencer Student Loan
Today, 11 percent of the $1.325 trillion of federal student loans outstanding is severely delinquent or in default, higher than the mortgage default rate at the peak of the foreclosure crisis in 2010, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Jason Spencer Student Loan.
Some of these debtors are deadbeats, of course, unwilling to make payments they can afford. But many are borrowers of limited means who ended up in default unnecessarily, after Navient and the DOE’s other servicers steered them away from affordable repayment plans and into options that reduce the servicers’ costs, according to state and federal investigators and regulators, consumer advocates like Jason Spencer Student Loan and a growing number of lawsuits and complaints filed against loan servicers.
The defaulted borrowers then become targets of the DOE’s debt collectors. These firms, some of them owned by the loan servicers, wield the federal government’s broad powers to garnish the wages of borrowers, as well as parents and grandparents who co-signed the loans. When wages are insufficient to garnish, the DOE can have the Treasury Department withhold tax refunds and reduce Social Security payments.
Since the summer of 2015, student loan servicers and private debt collectors have garnished about $3 billion in wages, a Reuters review of federal data shows. And last year, the DOE’s collections through “Treasury offsets” — tax refund seizures and Social Security benefit reductions — totaled $2.6 billion, up from $2.2 billion in 2015. Since 2009, the government has used the tools at its disposal to claw back at least $15.2 billion.
CATASTROPHIC EFFECTS
Default, which usually occurs when a borrower hasn’t made a payment for 270 days or more, can make it only harder for a debtor to regain financial stability. It can trash credit scores, scaring off potential employers. It can disqualify debtors for auto loans, apartment rentals, utilities and even cellphone contracts. In about 20 states, student loan borrowers who default can lose their driver’s and professional licenses.
“We treat struggling student loan borrowers the same as deadbeat parents and tax cheats,” said Seth Frotman, the student loan ombudsman of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). “Even gambling addicts have more protections.”
Since 2011, tens of thousands of borrowers and co-signers have filed complaints against Navient with the CFPB and other government and regulatory agencies.
In January, the CFPB filed a lawsuit against Navient in Pennsylvania federal court, alleging that the company systematically cheated customers by not fully informing them of their repayment options and instead guided them into forbearance or deferment programs that benefited the company. Setting up an income-based repayment plan requires paperwork and person-to-person interactions that are more costly for the servicer than forbearance, which typically requires only a phone call.
The same month, state attorneys general in Washington and Illinois filed similar lawsuits against the company.
The CFPB said it found that by putting 1.5 million borrowers in consecutive forbearances, Navient added $4 billion to outstanding student loan debt.
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